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FEATURED PROJECT VIDEO
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August 5, 2005
GROUNDBREAKING TELEVISION
SHOW
ABOUT THE LIVES OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES TO AIR ON WCVB-TV (CHANNEL 5) How does a man with Cerebral Palsy become a rap musician? How do quadriplegics play an extreme sport they call "Murderball"? How does a United Nations' photo exhibit alter the image of people with disabilities? How does a blind d.j. become the "Prince of Darkness"? How do people who are deaf create a film festival? How does a painter who loses his sight become a writer acclaimed by the New York Times? These questions will be answered in a pioneering new television program entitled BEYOND LIMITS that will air on Saturday, June 18, 2005 from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m. on WCVB-TV (Channel 5). Hosted by Emmy-award winning television journalist and disability advocate Bree Walker, BEYOND LIMITS will for the first time in New England broadcast history showcase the lives of people with disabilities who are succeeding in a variety of professions and activities. The show's profiles include: • Keith Jones, a Boston-based rap musician with Cerebral Palsy. Keith calls himself FEZO and is staking out territory now claimed by P. Diddy, Eminen and Jay-Z. • The Sundance Film Festival's award winner Murderball. The documentary chronicles the U.S. Paralympic wheelchair rugby team. This new extreme sport has been called by the Boston Globe "a combination of football, basketball, hockey and Ben-Hur." • A photo exhibition of athletes with disabilities drawn from the acclaimed book Raising the Bar. The book's images were recently displayed at the United Nations. • Jed Barton, a blind rock and roll d.j in Providence, Rhode Island. Going by the title of "The Prince of Darkness," Barton plays classic rock throughout the night. • Liz Tannenbaum, a co-founder of the Festival of Deaf Cinema. which shows movies incorporating captioning and production styles specific to the needs of the deaf. • Andy Potok, author of A Matter of Dignity, a book about people whose work focuses on disability issues. A Vermont painter and architect, Potok switched to writing after retinitis pigmentosa claimed his eyesight at age forty. "These profiles will hopefully change the perception of many that people with disabilities cannot succeed in our society," says Walker. "They are stories that as a journalist I find compelling not only for those with disabilities but for the able bodied community. They highlight the human experience of overcoming obstacles to find the happiness and satisfaction we all seek." Bree speaks from experience. She has a genetic hand and foot anomaly
called ectrodactyly, which her two children Andrea and Aaron also inherited. Despite the difficulty of such a visible disability, Bree became an award winning news anchor in Los Angeles, New York and San Diego. She's even turned her disability into the basis of character she's playing on the hit HBO series Carnivale, a show about a struggling circus troupe during the Depression. Working with one of Carnivale's producers, Bree created Sabina the Scorpion Queen. "In the thirties, a person with ectrodactyly would only work as a circus 'freak.' Now, despite the discrimination people with disabilities face, there are many more opportunities." The showcasing of those new opportunities is the mission of No Limits Media (NLM), the non-profit organization producing BEYOND LIMITS. Founded in 2001 by Artemis Joukowsky, a venture capitalists who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Larry Rothstein, a best- selling author and Dan Jones, an award winning video producer, NLM's goal is to develop a new image of people with disabilities. Beside BEYOND LIMITS, NLM authored Raising the Bar, an acclaimed book about athletes with disabilities, which was the official book of the 2002 Paralympic Games. NLM is also working with Spaulding Hospital to produce the Boston theatrical premier of Murderball on July 11th. (c) No Limits Media All rights reserved |